Runescape Clans and P2P Wilderness

Clans in runescape dominate the wilderness without any shadow of a doubt. However, the clan atmosphere is in a different league between free to play and pay to play (P2P). A recent dicussion on runescape community forums asked the questions and wanted opinions of people on what destroys the P2P Wild?

There were some different views taken by different people, although it boiled down to a small number of reasons:

1. No Honour Clans
2. One Itemers
3. Ancient Magic
4. Cost of items significantly greater

The list is relatively short and in some aspect it can easily show a reason why numerous people prefer to fight on free to play rather than pay to play. Runescape clans will not be as strong overall in P2P and therefore have less control over situations. This enables no honour clans an easier task to crash and interfere in any clan wars.

When any clan war in runescape P2P wild takes place there will be a network of one itemers and no honour members assembling and getting ready to crash the war. The fun element for them is taking the enjoyment out of the wilderness for other people. Clans will normally be much weaker in overall strength on P2P as not all clan members would be runescape members. However, almost every single no honour clan member or one itemer will be a member.

The organisation isn't as great on P2P when events get crashed as the crashers are simply their to cause mayhem - this causes confusion in clan ranks and members are less likely to return when they do not know what is happening or who exactly is crashing etc. With less organisation, lower members and more confusion, many clans simply refuse to hold P2P clan wars.

Overall, the cost of item replacement is certainly one factor that determines a persons ability and willingness to return to any clan war, although the fact no honour clans continually crash wars is probably the main reason in my opinion. The no honour clans will normally have a significant amount of ancient mages and therefore be able to cause huge damages quickly to any group of people. This hampers the ability of many melee based members to actually be able to do anything to help their clan. Consequently, returning is often pointless and certain fatality would only come of it.

Free to play runescape wilderness is much more evenly balanced in terms of the pking triangle and clans can maintain a much greater control over their organisation even when they get crashed. On top of that, all runescape members will be able to afford replacement of rune sets much more readily than barrows items or other specialist member items.

I don't know whether Jagex will ever get around to coding some sort of clan support, but one reason they should look at it is as a way to prevent the no honour clans (normally the same people associated with multiple types of cheating and scamming), from ruining the fun of the majority of more honest runescape clans and pkers in general.

Runescape Honour Versus No Honour

In the runescape clan world there has been an ongoing debate between honour and no honour clans. Personally, my preference is for some sort of honour system. I don't mean it to be extremely organised, but moreso, for it to be recognised as being respectful to other clans and showing common courtesy.

Runescape is a game at the end of the day and although Jagex do not officially recognise clans in runescape, perhaps they should consider the wider picture and look at adapting some formal clan system into the game. This would enable clans to be more organised from within the game user interface and would help establish some honour system.

Clans that respect each other will generally be classified as clans with honour, while clans that continually crash other clan wars or tournaments will normally be classed with no honour. In addition to crashing events or clan wars, no honour clans will also employ tactics that are frowned on by many of the runescape clan community. Activities such as luring, running from battles and looting at other clan wars can be broadly classified as without honour.

The fact Jagex do not recognise clans is one major limitation on being able to formalise some clan ethics within runescape. It is therefore normally set by established clans that want to promote a more active wilderness. This limits the impact of any generally agreed principles and as it is disjointed, it is really left open to individual interpretation - causing arguments or conflict within some runescape clans.

Overall, honour in runescape clans is never likely to become something that Jagex would adapt. It will therefore continue to be a cause of contention among the runescape clan community and we will continue to see the rise and fall of clans as time passes on. The large majority of runescape clans do work with their own rules and generally could be considered honourable clans. However, there has been an increase in the number of clans without honour and if this trend continues it can possibly have a large impact on runescape pking overall... with less players wanting to remain active in their clan and less pking in runescape in the long term.

Runescape Clans Not Endorsed

Runescape clans play an important role in the game for many players, however Jagex, the creators of runescape do not officially recognize or endorse clan activity. Jagex do acknowledge that certain players enjoy being part of a team and have introduced features they consider addresses the issue of clans.

The clan features (rather team oritentated features), that Jagex introduced to runescape are:

• Wilderness Team Capes
• Multi-player Mini Games
• Clan Forum section on the main runescape forums

These features may address some aspects of team play and go some way to unofficially accepting that clans play an important role for many runescape players. However, as most other MMORPG games have readily embraced clan activities, Jagex still hold back on implementing a coded solution.

If Jagex were to appease all runescape clan enthusiasts and implement a coded solution, the overall impact of clans in the runescape community would be increased significantly. Clans would be able to become organised through the game interface and official (or unofficial) tournaments or clan leagues would be much easier to control.

Runescape clans continue to thrive and exist beyond the Jagex realm and will continue to do so. However, by appeasing the large volume of members in clans and introducing an effective clan system into the game, Jagex can bring more benefits and longevity to the overall virtual lifespan of the average players' subscription.

Overall, Jagex are unlikely to change their opinion on whether a more formal can system should be introduced to runescape, even though many players only continue playing the game due to the clan they belong to. The runescape wilderness itself is dominated by clans and a formal clan system would help those players who are isolated from clan activities thoroughly enjoy their adventures more by being able to be more interactive in the game with others who are involved with clans.

Runescape Clan Closures

Dark Slayers:
Dark Slayers (DS), one of the more dominant clans in runescape have closed since last month. This provoked a lot of discussion on the clan community at Zybez. The decision had been taken many months before to end on the anniversary of its creation.

Runescape clan ranks may now be influenced by ex-DS members. It will depend on how many people remain active and on which clans they join. Many members appear to have joined up with Divine Forces (DF), and this will surely boost their overall capabilities in the wilderness.

Over at runehead editorials, there was an interview with the DS Leaders on msn and it explained why the clan closed as well as some mentions on the clan achievements.

Runescape pking, especially in free to play, will notice an impact to some degree, however, member worlds will not really be affected as most DS members pked mainly on free worlds.

Anzacs Closes:
Anzacs Clan (AZ), closed its doors for the final time as well. I do not know much about it and the news of its closure comes in the wake of the more headline grabbings closure of DS. At one stage they had a memberbase of 130 with a combat average of 110.8.

The combined closure of both Anzacs and Dark Slayers will enable existing runescape clans to boost their own ranks. It may have some impact in the wilderness as far as pking is concerned, although most people will remain unaffected.

As always, new clans will rise and fall with truly great clans choosing their time to disband instead of waiting for the inevitable to happen through inactivity or internal disruptions. Runescape clans will continue to be a source of enjoyment for any player who loves pking.

Runescape Clan League

Runescape Clans may soon have a clan league on their hands as there is a league being formed over at Zybez community discussion forums. I must say that this is something that has a lot of potential to guarantee clans of all sizes some regular battles in the wilderness. In addition, it may lead to Jagex someday introducing a clan battle arena and making it a more formal process.

When I initially wanted to start a runescape help site I had the idea of running a clan league to cater for all types of players. I had wanted to make it database driven where a clan representative would register their clan roster and then be able to keep their team members updated via the site. I still have an idea on how to make the process easily managed and would like to develop my idea if I can get ahold of some developers.

There are many different aspects to runescape clans and most of the top clans will be unlikely to participate for fear of losing their reputation. However, for those that do enter, there will be plenty of opportunity to get fighting experience in the wilderness.

In essence, it is a similar concept to the clan knockout tournament but with more regular and guaranteed action as clans will have to face each other througout the course of a season. This should prove a very useful learning experience for many new players - and help clans who do well to recruit new people into their ranks.

In mentioning clan recruitment, any player can register on my main runescape help site and submit their clan recruitment article or their clan event or even submit an article on any recent clan pking trips in the the runescape clans section.